The WTO agreements are lengthy and complex because they are legal texts covering a wide range of activities. They deal with: agriculture, textiles and clothing, banking, telecommunications, government purchases, industrial standards and product safety, food sanitation regulations, intellectual property, and much more. But a number of simple, fundamental principles run throughout all of these documents. These principles are the foundation of the multilateral trading system.

A closer look at these principles:

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1.
Most-favoured-nation (MFN): treating other people equally Under the WTO agreements, countries cannot normally discriminate between their trading partners. Grant someone a special favour (such as a lower customs duty rate for one of their products) and you have to do the same for all other WTO members.

Some exceptions are allowed. For example, countries can set up a free trade agreement that applies only to goods traded within the group
— discriminating against goods from outside. Or they can give developing countries special access to their markets. Or a country can raise barriers against products that are considered to be traded unfairly from specific countries. And in services, countries are allowed, in limited circumstances, to discriminate. But the agreements only permit these exceptions under strict conditions. In general, MFN means that every time a country lowers a trade barrier or opens up a market, it has to do so for the same goods or services from all its trading partners
— whether rich or poor, weak or strong.

2.
National treatment: Treating foreigners and locals equally Imported
and locally-produced goods should be treated equally — at least after
the foreign goods have entered the market. The same should apply to
foreign and domestic services, and to foreign and local trademarks,
copyrights and patents. This principle of “national treatment” (giving
others the same treatment as one’s own nationals) is also found in all
the three main WTO agreements (Article 3 of GATT,
Article 17 of GATS
and Article 3 of TRIPS),
although once again the principle is handled slightly differently in
each of these.

National treatment only applies once a product, service or item of intellectual property has entered the market. Therefore, charging customs duty on an import is not a violation of national treatment even if locally-produced products are not charged an equivalent tax.

Lowering trade barriers is one of the most obvious means of encouraging trade. The barriers concerned include customs duties (or tariffs) and measures such as import bans or quotas that restrict quantities selectively. From time to time other issues such as red tape and exchange rate policies have also been discussed.

Since GATT’s creation in 1947-48 there have been eight rounds of trade negotiations. A ninth round, under the Doha Development Agenda, is now underway. At first these focused on lowering tariffs (customs duties) on imported goods. As a result of the negotiations, by the
mid-1990s industrial
countries’ tariff rates on industrial goods had fallen steadily to less than 4%.

But by the 1980s, the negotiations had expanded to cover non-tariff barriers on goods, and to the new areas such as services and intellectual property.

Opening markets can be beneficial, but it also requires adjustment. The WTO agreements allow countries to introduce changes gradually, through
“progressive liberalization”. Developing countries are usually given longer to fulfil their obligations.

Sometimes, promising not to raise a trade barrier can be as important as lowering one, because the promise gives businesses a clearer view of their future opportunities. With stability and predictability, investment is encouraged, jobs are created and consumers can fully enjoy the benefits of competition
— choice and lower prices. The multilateral trading system is an attempt by governments to make the business environment stable and predictable.

The Uruguay Round increased bindings

Percentages of tariffs bound before and after the
1986-94 talks

Before

After

Developed countries

78

99

Developing countries

21

73

Transition economies

73

98

(These are tariff lines, so percentages are not weighted according to trade volume or value)

In the WTO, when countries agree to open their markets for goods or services, they
“bind” their commitments. For goods, these bindings amount to ceilings on customs tariff rates. Sometimes countries tax imports at rates that are lower than the bound rates. Frequently this is the case in developing countries. In developed countries the rates actually charged and the bound rates tend to be the same.

A country can change its bindings, but only after negotiating with its trading partners, which could mean compensating them for loss of trade. One of the achievements of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade talks was to increase the amount of trade under binding commitments
(see table). In agriculture, 100% of products now have bound tariffs. The result of all this: a substantially higher degree of market security for traders and investors.

The system tries to improve predictability and stability in other ways as well. One way is to discourage the use of quotas and other measures used to set limits on quantities of imports
— administering quotas can lead to more red-tape and accusations of unfair play. Another is to make
countries’ trade rules as clear and public (“transparent”) as possible. Many WTO agreements require governments to disclose their policies and practices publicly within the country or by notifying the WTO. The regular surveillance of national trade policies through the Trade Policy Review Mechanism provides a further means of encouraging transparency both domestically and at the multilateral level.

The WTO is sometimes described as a
“free trade” institution, but that is not entirely accurate. The system does allow tariffs and, in limited circumstances, other forms of protection. More accurately, it is a system of rules dedicated to open, fair and undistorted competition.

The rules on non-discrimination — MFN and national treatment
— are designed to secure fair conditions of trade. So too are those on dumping (exporting at below cost to gain market share) and subsidies. The issues are complex, and the rules try to establish what is fair or unfair, and how governments can respond, in particular by charging additional import duties calculated to compensate for damage caused by unfair trade.

Many of the other WTO agreements aim to support fair competition: in agriculture, intellectual property, services, for example. The agreement on government procurement (a
“plurilateral” agreement because it is signed by only a few WTO members) extends competition rules to purchases by thousands of government entities in many countries. And so on.

The WTO system contributes to development. On the other hand, developing countries need flexibility in the time they take to implement the
system’s agreements. And the agreements themselves inherit the earlier provisions of GATT that allow for special assistance and trade concessions for developing countries.

Over three quarters of WTO members are developing countries and countries in transition to market economies. During the seven and a half years of the Uruguay Round, over 60 of these countries implemented trade liberalization programmes autonomously. At the same time, developing countries and transition economies were much more active and influential in the Uruguay Round negotiations than in any previous round, and they are even more so in the current Doha Development Agenda.

At the end of the Uruguay Round, developing countries were prepared to take on most of the obligations that are required of developed countries. But the agreements did give them transition periods to adjust to the more unfamiliar and, perhaps, difficult WTO provisions
— particularly so for the poorest, “least-developed” countries. A ministerial decision adopted at the end of the round says better-off countries should accelerate implementing market access commitments on goods exported by the least-developed countries, and it seeks increased technical assistance for them. More recently, developed countries have started to allow duty-free and quota-free imports for almost all products from least-developed countries. On all of this, the WTO and its members are still going through a learning process. The current Doha Development Agenda includes developing
countries’ concerns about the difficulties they face in implementing the Uruguay Round agreements.

The principles

The trading system should be ...

without discrimination — a country should not discriminate between its trading partners (giving them equally
“most-favoured-nation” or MFN status); and it should not discriminate between its own and foreign products, services or nationals (giving them
“national treatment”);

freer — barriers coming down through negotiation;

predictable — foreign companies, investors and governments should be confident that trade barriers (including tariffs and non-tariff barriers) should not be raised arbitrarily; tariff rates and market-opening commitments are
“bound” in the
WTO;

more competitive — discouraging
“unfair” practices such as export subsidies and dumping products at below cost to gain market share;

more beneficial for less developed countries
— giving them more time to adjust, greater flexibility, and special privileges.

Why ‘most-favoured’?

This sounds like a contradiction. It suggests special treatment, but in the WTO it actually means non-discrimination
— treating virtually everyone equally.

This is what happens. Each member treats all the other members equally as
“most-favoured” trading partners. If a country improves the benefits that it gives to one trading partner, it has to give the same
“best” treatment to all the other WTO members so that they all remain
“most-favoured”.

Most-favoured nation (MFN) status did not always mean equal treatment. The first bilateral MFN treaties set up exclusive clubs among a
country’s “most-favoured” trading partners. Under GATT and now the WTO, the MFN club is no longer exclusive. The MFN principle ensures that each country treats its
over—140 fellow-members equally.